I came here around the time the rif app shut down, and the general vibe I get from this place is much more negative than when I joined. Is Lemmy growing more toxic or is it just my imagination?

  • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
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    14 hours ago

    From a neutral viewpoint, the world is more divided than ever, no matter what values you have, there’s someone who opposes them with few, if any exceptions. Those opposing viewpoints have only grown in strength and number on the Internet, for years.

    Additionally, the “us vs them” mentality of everyone is blinding them to even understanding why someone would disagree with their viewpoint. Of course that’s not everyone, but it’s a growing and very loud group.

    Political violence is also starting to run rampant. Escalation after escalation. It keeps building.

    So in this time of having a global voice, that can reach hundreds of millions of people with a single tweet or comment or thread or post or whatever, and with so much growing hatred among different political groups, it’s unsurprising to me that conflict is rising.

    Additionally, Lemmy is growing. Not everyone that joins Lemmy will be the same type of person that joined Lemmy after the Reddit API incident. That influx of people had a very similar value set, because they almost all came here from Reddit for the same reason. So there’s at least a good amount of overlap in everyone’s values.

    Over time, more and more diverse people have been joining Lemmy, and it’s not surprising that they have differing opinions on a lot of things.

    This outcome was pretty much inevitable.

    As far as I’m concerned, as long as it’s done respectfully and civilly, then disagree. Debate. Try to understand the opposing viewpoint, even if you don’t agree with it.